


True Feelings

by Okikage



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Bad Cooking, Cooking Lessons, First Kiss, Fluff, Gay Ichijouji Ken, Heartbeats, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Soul Bond, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29394012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okikage/pseuds/Okikage
Summary: When Ken asks Hikari's help making homemade chocolate to give to Daisuke for Valentine's Day, he is both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by Daisuke showing up on his doorstep instead.
Relationships: Ichijouji Ken/Motomiya Daisuke | Davis Motomiya
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25
Collections: Daiken Valentine's Exchange 2021





	True Feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anatui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anatui/gifts).



> HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY ANA!!! I LOVE YOU have this very important prompt you gave out that's absolutely adorable.

Ken pinched his nose, staring down the heap of specialty ingredients and new kitchen devices he had gotten for this endeavor. Maybe this was a bad idea, getting all this _stuff_.

But if he was going to make Daisuke chocolate for Valentine’s Day, if he was going to cross that threshold and actually tell him how he _felt_ , he was going to do it _right_. Even if the reality of actually doing that was looking worse with each step.

The doorbell broke into his reverie, and Ken cracked a smile as he crossed the empty living room to get the door for Hikari. She was much better at these sorts of things than him, though nothing compared to Daisuke, who could whip up a beautiful and delicious meal in no time at all since he’d started really getting into it.

“Hello, Hikari-san - “ Ken stopped in his tracks, holding the door by sheer entropy, as he registered that it was _not_ , in fact, Hikari at his door.

Daisuke gave him one of his trademark smiles that made Ken’s brain turn into a puddle of goo whenever he directed it towards him and stepped inside, like he did almost every weekend, toeing off his shoes before Ken even finished welcoming him in. He breezed past Ken, paralyzed and still holding the door open, leaning against the wall in just his socks.

“Hikari-chan told me you needed some help in the kitchen. Why didn’t you just ask _me_ , huh? I owe it to you for getting me into high school, after all.” Daisuke threw his hands behind his head and laughed at his own joke, and Ken was too busy trying to process the fact that Daisuke in all his wondrous glory was here while _chocolate-making_ stuff had taken over his kitchen and Valentine’s Day was _tomorrow_ and what would Daisuke even _think_ this wasn’t the plan.

Ken had a three-part plan where he was going to give Daisuke the chocolate and then carefully find a position to watch and see how he reacted that was _not_ running and hiding, thank you very much. And now that had been tossed out the window.

“What are you making, anyway? Hikari-chan wouldn’t say, just said you would ‘need all the help you can get’.”

Ken finally let go of the door, letting it slide back into place with the closing mechanism. Instead of answering, he blushed, his gaze somewhere around Daisuke’s shins.

Daisuke wouldn’t stand for that, though, and Ken knew it. Ken watched as he uncrossed his feet and didn’t fight as he tilted his chin up just enough so they could lock eyes, which wasn’t very hard given the ten centimeters he had on Daisuke.

Daisuke looked at him with such intensity it sent shivers down Ken’s spine. He eyed Ken with a narrowed, piercing look that made him feel pinned up and put on display, his wings spread onto the wall like a butterfly.

“Are you...embarrassed?” Daisuke cocked his head, looking adorably confused. “Why?”

“I’ll just show you what I’m making.” Ken stepped back from Daisuke’s hand cradling his chin and all of a sudden remembered he wasn’t trapped at all, ducking around Daisuke and back into the kitchen as the distress Daisuke probably _felt_ continued to run through him.

He crossed his arms and stared at the offending counter full of ingredients once more, this time cringing as Daisuke followed behind and joined him.

“Hmm.” Daisuke surveyed the counter, picking up the new grater he’d bought just for this. He brandished it towards Ken, wielding it like a sword. “Are you making _chocolate_?”

Ken’s continued blushing and silence as he looked off to the side was all the answer Daisuke needed, really.

Daisuke chuckled at him, and as melodic as it was it also stung a little. “Wow! I knew you were a planner, but this is a little ridiculous. It isn’t even Valentine’s and you’re practicing for White Day?”

Ken snapped up to watch Daisuke giggle into his hands, organizing the mess he’d placed on the counter and setting up the double boiler thing he’d also picked up. Daisuke’s....assumption made things easier, at least. His fear ratcheted down a level as he calmed down, watching Daisuke with a hint of his smile returning.

And, oh, watching Daisuke was so wonderful. He flowed through the kitchen, setting up his - _their_ \- workspace, putting aside everything they didn’t need right now out of the way but still within reach and beckoning him over. Ken sidled up beside him, finding just the block of cocoa butter and grater in front of them.

“You’ve used a grater before, right?”

“Probably?” He didn’t really remember much of the Home Ec classes he endured through Elementary and Middle School, but this didn’t seem that hard. He just had to run the stuff over the outside.

“Alright then! How much do you want to try making, anyway?” Daisuke rifled through Ken’s stuff and pulled out the heart molds he’d gotten. “Oooh, these are cute.”

“I...wasn’t sure. How much to make.” He wanted to make one for each time Daisuke had saved his life.

“Well, this is an experiment, right? So how about we make all six in different combinations, see which one you think your lady friend will like.”

Ken flinched as he unwrapped one end of the cocoa butter, placing it on the side of the grater and running it down. Barely anything came off, and it was a _lot_ harder than it looked. Daisuke noticed, of course he did.

“Let me show you.” He put his hand on Ken’s, his palm instantly warming Ken’s icy back, and Ken could feel his heart pounding faster with each fleeting touch.

“You gotta hold it tight.” Daisuke wrapped around him to hold his other hand as well, keep the grater steady on the counter. Ken was caught between hyperventilating and not breathing at all.

“And put some force behind it when you bring the block down.” Daisuke’s front pressed against Ken, and he sought out the comforting beat of his heart, muffled by clothes as it was.

He wasn’t paying attention at all to how to grate. Daisuke’s hands held him, led him through creating the chunks of butter he needed to melt smoothly together into the chocolate. He barely realized when Daisuke stopped, a nice sizeable amount of the purest form of white chocolate possible in a pile.

“Want to make some white first? We just have to add the sugar and milk powder to this for that.” Daisuke pulled away and Ken could finally think again. He nodded, hoping Daisuke wasn’t feeling his heart racing, knowing he could reach out and feel Daisuke’s steady, slower rate if he wanted.

“Sounds good.” He gripped the end of the counter as Daisuke started the stove, seeing him grin out of the corner of his eye.

“Sooooo.” Daisuke sidled up next to him as they waited for the water to heat up, hip checking him and making Ken gulp. “Who d’ya think is gonna give you chocolate?”

The alarms in Ken’s mind refused to turn off. He stared resolutely at the double boiler so he wouldn’t have to look at Daisuke.

“C’mon, you can tell me! Is it Miyako? She’s been weird with you _forever_.”

“Not recently.” Ken waited for an excuse he could actually _take_ , he couldn’t let Daisuke think Miyako still had a thing for him. How did he not know she was exclusively dating girls now?

“Well I know it isn’t Hikari-chan!” Daisuke’s giggles rose his hackles up, and he continued, “You wouldn’t ask her to help with making her _own_ chocolate.”

He didn’t want to be talking about this. He didn’t want to be standing in his kitchen lying by omission to Daisuke talking about what girl was going to ask him out. He wouldn’t say yes to any even if they did.

There was only one person he would say yes to. Had only ever been that one person. And things between them were not going to go well if this continued.

“Can you show me how to make this?” Ken successfully distracted Daisuke from asking any more questions about _girls_ for the moment.

“Oh! Sure!” Daisuke stood in front of the burner, instructing Ken on the proper way to make chocolate like this. He melted the cocoa butter, carefully picked out a metal whisk from Mama’s collection, and started mixing in the sugar, letting it dissolve together. Ken stared at Daisuke as he worked, humming a jaunty tune to himself in between explanations Ken barely paid attention to, too enthralled by seeing Daisuke so comfortable and at ease, wanting nothing more than to just stop everything here and drink it all in. He chanced a light touch to Daisuke’s side, and Daisuke responded by wrapping his arm around Ken’s back, pulling him in and handing the whisk to him.“Keep it nice and steady.” Daisuke’s hot breath puffed over Ken’s neck. He really did try to pay attention to the hot mixture in front of him, but Daisuke was his usual _distracting_ self. He gasped as Daisuke’s hand grazed his waist, stirring and stirring as the liquid in front of him turned white and thick with the addition of the milk powder.

Daisuke praised him and Ken could barely take it, wanting it to mean more than it did. He couldn’t breathe, and then he remembered.“Oh, I was gonna try colors!”

Daisuke stopped touching him and it was both a blessing and sad, and he plucked up the food coloring he’d pulled out of the back of his cabinet.

“What color did you want to use?”

Instead of answering, Ken flushed. He hadn’t really decided, if it would be better to do blue and green, or some kind of gold. Most colors reminded him of Daisuke somehow, but he distinctly remembered the glow of their digivices when they first Jogressed, wanting to somehow emulate it in this.

“Ken?”

“Blue. I wanted to make some...blue.”

Daisuke handed him the tiny bottle, tapping his lips with his index finger. “Blue, huh? None of the girls have a blue digivice or crest or anything...is this someone I don’t know?”

Ken’s heart nearly stopped. No, none of the _girls_ had a blue digivice. Just Daisuke. He mixed in the drops of blue, trying to get the coloring even, but something seemed. Wrong. Off.

“You know them.” He kept stirring, but now the thick, shiny liquid was starting to crack and congeal into clumps, and soon instead of something smooth he had just a lump of a blueish crumbly mess in the bowl.

“Oh shit.” Daisuke picked up the coloring again, reading the back and his face fell more and more with each word. “Damn.”

“What? What did I wrong?” Ken turned off the heat, staring at the mess he’d made of his first attempt.

“This is water-based food coloring. You gotta use oil-based stuff in chocolate or it does - that. Sorry. I shoulda checked.”

Oh. _Ken_ should have checked. It wasn’t _Daisuke’s_ fault Ken didn’t think he would specific _food coloring_ for this endeavor too. Why was chocolate so _hard_?

“Hey, it’s okay.” Daisuke hugged him, pulling him down to his level to bring him closer.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, this is your first time trying to make chocolate, this stuff happens.”

“I just - I just want it to be perfect.” Daisuke _deserved_ perfect. He deserved better than Ken’s baggage, and yet all Ken wanted was for Daisuke to be with and help hold it.

“It’ll be perfect no matter how it comes out. You made it.”

Ken reached out and clung to the front of Daisuke’s shirt, his eyes watering as he pulled himself together. He just hoped Daisuke still held that same conviction when he - gave it to him.

“C’mon, let’s make some milk now.”

“Your favorite.”

Daisuke laughed as he replaced the official pan that went on the double boiler with a bowl he found, putting more cocoa butter in to melt. “Who doesn’t love milk?”

Ken shrugged as he went to grab another whisk, cringing at the amount of dishes they were making.

He got it back to where the other chocolate was before, this time a light brown in the bowl, with Daisuke’s help measuring out everything. Daisuke was strangely quiet now, no longer needling Ken about who exactly he was making these for.

“I’ve been thinking.” He set the mold down, gesturing for Ken to pour the chocolate into it.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Har-de-har. You gonna pour that or what?”

Ken stuck out his tongue, feeling at ease in Daisuke’s presence despite everything else around them. He poured the viscous liquid into each little heart, ending up filling just the top three.

“Is that okay? We don’t have to fill everything or it’ll mess up, right?”

“Nah, it’s fine. But as I was saying.” Daisuke put his hand on the counter, leaning into it and swiveling around to look at Ken face-to-face. “Are these - actually for Valentine’s?”

“W-what does that mean?” Ken backed away, still holding the bowl of chocolate.

“Like, are you - making this for another guy?”

Ken dropped the bowl. It made a horrific clanging noise at it collided with the ground, the little droplets of chocolate left over spraying out and painting the tiles around it. He blushed deep as he picked it up, apologizing with stuttering breaths.

Daisuke leaned down as well, covering Ken’s hands as he helped pick up the bowl. “That’s fine. By me. You know.”

Ken couldn’t look at Daisuke. He was starting to regret everything. How was he supposed to confess when he couldn’t even look at Daisuke when he figured out he liked a _guy_?

“Okay.”

“...Is it Yamato-senpai?”

“What?” Ken snapped his head up, squinting with one eye. “No. What?”

“Just a guess.” Daisuke merely shrugged. “Friendship is blue.”

Ken’s mouth went dry. It amazed him how Daisuke could be so close and yet _so_ far off. He put the bowl back on the top of the burner, determined to finish.

“Can we...use the same bowl?”

“Sure! We’ll get some remnants but that’s fine.”

“Oh...I should have made the dark first, I guess.”

“Putting a bit of milk in dark will only make it better.”

“ _I_ like dark, you know.” Ken fell into the now familiar pattern of melting the butter, adding the cocoa powder, letting it come together with some sugar.

“Hmm, who else likes dark - Koushiro? He seems the type.”

“I’m _not_ making chocolate for Izumi-san.”

“Then tell me who!” Daisuke insisted, pushing into Ken’s space, one arm on the counter on either side of him, his chin on Ken’s bicep. “C’mon! You can tell me!”

He wanted to do this _right_ . Even if right didn’t usually involve your crush _helping_ you make the chocolate for them. He wanted to tell Daisuke this Saturday, in a completely different setting that he could run away from if he really needed to.

“I - can’t.”

Daisuke grabbed his wrist, putting his thumb against Ken’s pulse in a way he did when he really wanted to emphasize he wasn’t going to _leave_ , that he and Ken were best friends _forever_ and that he _meant_ the forever part. “You can. You’ll at least tell me after, right?”

Ken wasn’t sure how to massage the truth to fit into that particular question. He closed his eyes, feeling Daisuke’s heartbeat against his back and stilling the hand holding the whisk. He melted into Daisuke’s hold, simultaneously wishing he didn’t enjoy it as much as he did and never wanting him to let go.

“Woah, watch out!” Daisuke tore him out of his reverie again, picking up and stirring the chocolate back up. “Don’t want it to burn.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

He picked up this batch, filling the next three hearts and smiling at having actually done it. He turned the burner off completely, looking at Daisuke with happiness bubbling in his throat.

Who was frowning at him. His smile fell.

“What wrong?”

“It isn’t - _Takeru_ is it?”

Oh my god. Ken guffawed out, unable to stop, covering his mouth. Was Daisuke _really_ keeping up his weird rivalry with Takeru at this very moment? And did that _mean_ something? Did Daisuke - ?

He tried not to get his hopes too high up.

“Hey! I don’t have a lot of options left! I know it’s not, like, Iori, and you haven’t really talked to Jou-san enough. And Taichi-senpai?” Daisuke looked him up and down, shaking his head.

Ironically, that was the closest Daisuke had gotten all afternoon. Ken gingerly picked up the mold to take it over to the fridge -

“Wait.” Daisuke covered his hands, making him put it back down. He picked it up a few centimeters and dropped it down to the counter a couple times, and Ken just stared, boggling at the weirdness. “That gets rid of air bubbles.”

“How are air bubbles in it? How does _that_ get them out?”

“I dunno!” Daisuke shrugged. “It just does.”

Ken tried again, taking them to the fridge to condense and cool down for Saturday, turning around to find Daisuke counting on his fingers.

“Uhh...you okay?”

“I’m just - thinking.”

Ken didn’t want Daisuke _thinking_ so much about what he probably was thinking about.

Daisuke looked at him, his deep eyes the color of the chocolate they’d just made together searching, crossed his arms. “I just - I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what?”

“You not telling me who it is! How am I supposed to know if he’d good enough for you?”

“Trust me.” Ken took Daisuke’s hand, threading their fingers together. “If anything, I don’t deserve him.”

“That’s bullshit, c’mon Ken.”

Ken looked down, but Daisuke tilted his chin up.

“I mean it. You deserve the best, coolest, most amazing guy in the world.”

Ken could feel the heat on his face, only able to look into Daisuke’s as he held him there. “I already have that.”

He watched as Daisuke tilted his head cutely, trying to understand, trying to put it together. His smile lit up as things clicked, their single heartbeat binding them together.

“Ken, are you going to give those - to me?”

He _really_ had wanted to do this right. “Yes.”

Daisuke moved closer without moving at all, Ken’s kitchen going eerily still. “Can I have them now?”

“If you want them.”

Daisuke’s lips were so much _warmer_ than Ken expected. He knew Daisuke ran hot, felt his familiar touches before, but never like this. Never with Daisuke’s tongue pressing into him, his breath going down into Ken’s lungs, his hands tangled in his hair.

He never wanted to feel anything else again.


End file.
